A 24-year-old rapper who refuses to sign a record deal was just named 'one of the most influential people in the world'

Chance The Rapper accepting the award for best new artist at the 2017 Grammy Awards.
Matt Sayles/Invision/AP

Chance the Rapper is the most talented rapper of his generation and a pioneer in the music industry. His latest album, "Coloring Book," won him a 2017 Grammy for best new artist.

In 2017, the Grammys made streaming-only albums available for awards consideration for the first time, which allowed "Coloring Book" to be nominated. Because of the new rule, Chance, whose real name is Chancellor Bennett, made history as the first artist to win a Grammy based on a streaming-only album.

Miraculously, Chance has done all of this without a label supporting him. He's turned down record deals from numerous labels, and depends on word-of-mouth and his SoundCloud account for distribution.

The fame and success just reached another milestone of recognition: Chance was named one of the 100 most influential people in the world, according to Time magazine. "Chance upends expectations about what artists, ­especially hip-hop artists, can do," the rapper Common wrote in the magazine.

But Chance didn't keep doing the same thing over and over again. He joined a band and made uplifting Christian rock.

In 2015, Chance joined a band called Donnie Trumpet & The Social Experiment, a collective of Chicago-based musicians, for a quirky album called "Surf."

The music was a stylistic departure for Chance. His vocal performance was still rap, but it's not really a rap album. The whole thing takes a jazzy and explicitly Christian tone. The highlight is a track called "Sunday Candy." Chance co-directed the music video.

7/

Performing on "Saturday Night Live" was a career landmark.

Chance on "Saturday Night Live."
NBC

Chance performed "Sunday Candy" and "Paradise" from "Surf" on "Saturday Night Live" on December 15, 2015. He was the first unsigned artist to do so.

8/

Then he made five tracks with Kanye West.

Kanye.
Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images

In 2014, Chance worked on five songs for Kanye West's 2016 album "The Life of Pablo."

He provided guest vocals for "Ultralight Beam,"rapping "I met Kanye West, I'm never going to fail/He said let's do a good ass job with Chance three/I hear you gotta sell it to snatch the Grammy/Let's make it so free and the bars so hard/That there ain't one gosh darn part you can't tweet."

9/

He and Kanye appeared together on "SNL" the night "The Life of Pablo" dropped.

Kanye featured Chance in his "Saturday Night Live" performance.
NBC

The two performed "Ultralight Beam" together.

10/

In 2016, Chance released the album "Coloring Book" and rapped about how much he hates record labels.

Chance the Rapper performing at the Bonnaroo music festival.
Photo by Jason Merritt/Getty Images

His song "No Problem" is about how much Chance wants to keep record labels far, far away from his music. The album is widely considered to be one of the best of the year.

He briefly became a meme at the MTV Video Music Awards.

In the middle of a backstage interview with MTV, Chance was interrupted by Beyoncé sneaking up behind him. He, quite understandably, freaked out.

13/

Then the Grammys changed their rules for him.

The Grammys new they needed to recognize him.
Photo by Joel Ryan/Invision/AP

Now that he's BFFs with Kanye and "Coloring Book" is a success, the music industry has to accept Chance whether they want to or not. Given the success of "Coloring Book," the Grammys changed their rules in June to allow streaming-only titles to be nominated.

14/

Chance got seven nominations for the 2017 Grammys.

It worked out.
Photo by Christopher Polk/Getty Images for Anheuser-Busch

"I told him to keep following his dreams. Then I forgot all about it," Common wrote.

But years later, Chance remembered his encouragement.

"You won't remember this," he said, "but you called me when I was a kid."

Now, as Common writes, Chance has upended expectations about what artists can do.

"He streams his albums instead of selling them. He makes music from an unapologetically inspiring and Christian perspective—music that transcends age, race and gender. He gives back to his Chicago community," he wrote. "And he does it all as an independent artist, without the support of a label."